Ahead of elections, Russian media are duly warned

Russia's leading independent media head into
Sunday's elections--in which Vladimir Putin is expected to be handed his third
presidential term--burdened by a series of warnings. Over the past few
months, beginning with the parliamentary elections held December 4, Kremlin
allies have taken several steps designed to put news outlets on alert for uncensored
coverage of nationwide protests, in which a surprising number of Russians have demanded
an end to elections fraud and called on Putin to step down from his current
post of prime minister.

On December
12, Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov, owner of the Kommersant Publishing
House -- which produces independent business daily Kommersant and several other news outlets -- announced that he was
sacking Maksim Kovalsky, chief editor of the popular weekly magazine Kommersant-Vlast. Demyan Kudryavtsev,
the publisher's executive director, announced he would resign. The news was a
huge blow, as Kovalsky and Kudryavtsev are leading journalists and considered fathers
of Kommersant and its publisher.

The magazine's coverage of the parliamentary
election was surely the reason for Kommersant's beheading. A week after the
vote, most of Kommersant-Vlast's
coverage was of the alleged fraud that led to public outrage and protests
unprecedented in Russia in the past decade. But Usmanov -- believed to be in
Putin's close circle - zeroed in on a formal reason to punish the magazine. In
its December 12 issue, Kommersant-Vlast
published a picture of a ballot cast in London for the opposition Yabloko
party; the ballot carried a hand-written insult to Putin across it. Usmanov publicly
scolded the magazine for "unacceptable use of coarse language," and said it was
unethical and "on the borderline of hooliganism." The magazine removed the
picture from its website, but it was circulated on social networks, including Kommersant reporter Oleg Kashin's Twitter
account.

The removal of Kovalsky and Kudryavtsev angered
their colleagues at Kommersant. Two days later, dozens of journalists from Usmanov's
news outlets -- including independent news website Gazeta -- signed and published online an open letter headlined, "We
are forced into cowardice." Veronika Kucyllo, a long-serving deputy editor at Kommersant-Vlast, announced her
resignation in protest of Usmanov's decision.

Other prominent media outlets have been
subject to official intimidation and scrutiny following their reporting on
anti-Putin rallies.

On February 14, the state controlled
publishing company Gazprom-media, which holds a 66% stake in the independent
radio station Ekho Moskvy, demanded
a premature shuffling of the broadcaster's board of directors and removal
of two of its prominent members. The long serving independent directors Yevgeny
Yasin and Aleksandr Makovsky, who had been helping the broadcaster develop for
11 years, were forced out. Aleksei Venediktov, the broadcaster's chief editor,
and his deputy Vladimir Varfolomeyev were axed from the board too, Ekho Moskvy
reported. Both editors are known for fierce criticism of Putin's government.

In an interview with Gazeta, Yasin suggested the move could only have been orchestrated
by the high echelons of power because Gazprom has had a hands-off attitude to
the station in the past. "The government apparently wants to establish
control over independent media," Yasin told Gazeta, "and Ekho Moskvy is, in a sense, a flagman. If it
changes course, all others would either be falling in line or resist."

The board shuffle followed a public scolding
of the broadcaster's editorial line by Vladimir Putin. At a January 18 meeting
with chief editors of the leading Russian news outlets, Putin accused Ekho
Moskvy of serving U.S. interests, and said the station was smearing him nonstop
from dusk to dawn.

The next attack against the media took place
on February 16, when Russia's Prosecutor General's Office launched
an investigation against independent Web-based broadcaster Dozhd. The probe
came at the request of Robert Shlegel, a parliament member from Putin's United
Russia party, local press reported. Shlegel accused the broadcaster of
providing support to, and being a mouthpiece of, the December protest rallies.
According to news reports, Shlegel said he suspected that Dozhd had accepted
foreign sponsorship to play its role. Putin has long accused critics and
opponents of being sponsored by foreigners; following the December protests, he
publicly accused U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of siding with the
protesters and supporting them. Prosecutor General Yury Chaika also told
reporters that the protests had foreign sponsors.

Prosecutors have seized accounting documents
from Dozhd and the investigation continues. Commenting on the accusations, Mikhail
Zygar, Dozhd's chief editor, said Russia's fiscal police are well aware of the
broadcaster's funding, and that covering the protests -- which took place a few
blocks from his newsroom -- was not costly. Zygar said the broadcaster used one
of its weather cameras on top of the newsroom's building, and bought footage
from the state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti.

Yet another Putin critic, prominent
independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has
been obstructed ahead of Sunday's vote. Last month, local media reported
that authorities, including agents from the Interior Ministry, Federal Security
Service (FSB), and more than 100 auditors from Russia's central bank raided the
businesses of the newspaper's major shareholder, Aleksandr Lebedev. Lebedev's primary
business, Natsionalnyi Rezervnyi Bank, and its 19 branches nationwide were the subject
of a "planned" audit, Aleksey Simanovsky of the central bank told journalists
on February 18. However, this announcement came after authorities audited
Lebedev's bank last fall and published a 500-page review concluding the bank
did not breach the law.

The auditors are apparently interested not in
the bank but in the profits Lebedev uses for philanthropy - the raiders
confiscated paperwork related to the funding of his humanitarian and media organizations.
The latter includes Novaya Gazeta, which is
known for relentless criticism of Putin's government. At the moment all of
Lebedev's personal accounts are frozen, and those funded by the businessman,
including Novaya Gazeta's staffers,
are affected.

Igor Yakovenko, former head of the Russian
Union of Journalists, said all of these moves to intimidate the media -- firing
Kommersant editors, investigating Dozhd, dismissing Ekho Moskvy's independent
directors, and auditing Lebedev's bank - is a harbinger of grave changes in the
relationship between the power holders and society.

"This is a collection of signals which send an
unequivocal message of what is going to happen to Russian media after the March
4 presidential elections. Everything that's happening to Ekho Moskvy, Dozhd,
Lebedev's business interests - all this is summing up into a clear pattern:
That the game is over," Yakovenko told CPJ.>

Elena Milashina is an award-winning, investigative journalist with Novaya Gazeta and a Moscow correspondent for CPJ.

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